Secured operation with optional cancellation on touch-sensitive devices

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides a method and a device for facilitating a single touch-and-drag operation for a user to communicate his/her intention and make selection during a transaction flow in a robust and intuitive way. It can not only prevent erroneous selection triggered by any inadvertent or accidental touch but also provide option for the user to withdraw selection which is made unintentionally.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to facilitating intuitive andsecured operation via an interactive interface. More specifically, thepresent invention relates to techniques of facilitating singletouch-and-drag operation via mobile devices with touch-sensitivescreens.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Mobile devices with touch-sensitive screens have been widely used foronline transactions. As screens of mobile devices are usually small insize which result in smaller buttons or links in close proximity to eachother, it might be difficult for a user to proceed with a transactionflow with his/her mobile phone in some situations. For example, when theuser is moving or being distracted, he/she may inadvertently oraccidentally touch an icon or button on the screen to cause erroneousselection. It is therefore desired to have a user interface that allowsa user to communicate his/her intention and make selection on atouch-sensitive screen of a mobile device in a more secured andintuitive way.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

One objective of the present invention is to improve the touch-sensingfunctionality of a touch-sensitive screen of a mobile device byfacilitating a single touch-and-drag operation for a user to communicatehis/her intention and make selection during a transaction flow in arobust and intuitive way. It can not only prevent erroneous selection(e.g. triggered by any inadvertent or accidental touch) in onlinetransactions but also provide option for the user to withdraw selectionwhich is made unintentionally.

In accordance with various embodiments, a method is provided forfacilitating a single touch-and-drag operation in a mobile device havinga touch-sensitive screen, the method comprises: setting the device to astandby state and displaying a user interface including one or moreactivating regions on the touch-sensitive screen; when a touch isdetermined to be received in the activating region, setting the mobiledevice to an introduction state configured to be expired in anintroduction time duration; starting a first timer to count down fromthe introduction time and displaying timing information of the firsttimer on the touch-sensitive screen for indicating progress of theintroduction state; when the introduction state is expired, setting themobile device to a confirmation state if the touch received in theactivating region is not released, wherein the confirmation state isconfigured to be expired in a confirmation time duration; starting asecond timer configured to count down from the confirmation timeduration; setting the mobile device to enter an execution state toexecute an application process corresponding to the activating region ortransmit a command to a remote server to execute a remote applicationprocess corresponding to the activating region if the touch received inthe activating region is released from the activating region before theconfirmation state being expired.

The method further comprises resetting the device to the standby stateif the touch received in the activating region is released during theintroduction state; if the touch received in the activating region isnot released until the confirmation state is expired; or if the touchreceived in the activating region is dragged away from activating regionduring the confirmation state.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the invention are described in more detail hereinafterwith reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 depicts a schematic block diagram of a mobile device forfacilitating a user to perform a single touch-and-drag operation inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a user toperform a single touch-and-drag operation according to one embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 3 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a user toperform a single touch-and-drag operation according to anotherembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a user toperform a single touch-and-drag operation according to anotherembodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a user toperform a single touch-and-drag operation according to anotherembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, methods for facilitating a user to performa single touch-and-drag operation to initiate and confirm execution ofan application process and the likes are set forth as preferredexamples. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art thatmodifications, including additions and/or substitutions may be madewithout departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Specificdetails may be omitted so as not to obscure the invention; however, thedisclosure is written to enable one skilled in the art to practice theteachings herein without undue experimentation.

In accordance with various embodiments, the method may be implementedwith a mobile device having touch-sensitive functionality. FIG. 1depicts a schematic block diagram of a mobile device 100 forfacilitating a user to perform single touch-and-drag operation inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The mobiledevice may comprise a touch-sensitive screen 101, a display driver 102,a touch-sensing controller 103, a processor 104, a memory 105, acommunication module 106. Optionally, the mobile device may furthercomprise an acceleration sensing module 107 and a voice receiving module108.

The touch-sensitive screen 101 be configured to display a user interfaceincluding one or more activating regions to facilitate user input andselections, to sense input touch gestures, including but not limited totap, dragging upward/downward or leftward/rightward, on the screen andto generate touch-sensing signals.

The touch-sensing controller 102 may be connected to the touch-sensitivescreen 101 and configured to receive the touch-sensing signals from thetouch-sensitive screen 101 to generate touch data.

The display driver 103 may be connected to the touch-sensitive screen101 and configured to drive the touch-sensitive screen 101 to displaythe user interface.

The processor 104 may be connected to the touch-sensing controller 102and the display driver 103, and configured to receive the touch datafrom the touch-sensing controller 102, to analyze touch data foridentifying a user input, to execute an application process in responseto the identified user input, to generate display data for the displaydriver 103 to reconfigure the user interface being displayed in thetouch-sensitive screen 101.

The memory 105 may be connected to the processor 104 and configured tostore one or more touch-sensing parameters or predetermined instructionsfor execution of the application process.

The communication module 106 may be connected to the processor 104, andconfigured to transmit the identified user inputs to a remote processor(not shown), e.g. a cloud server, to execute a remote applicationprocess.

The acceleration sensing module 107 may be connected to the processor104 and configured to measure acceleration of the mobile device andgenerate acceleration signals. The processor 104 may be furtherconfigured to receive the generated acceleration signals and determinewhether there is a sudden motion of the mobile device.

The voice receiving module 108 may be connected to the processor 104 andconfigured to receive voice of a user and generate voice signals. Theprocessor 104 may be further configured to receive the generated voicesignals and identify whether the voice belongs to the user of the mobiledevice.

FIG. 2 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a singletouch-and-drag operation according to one embodiment of the presentinvention. The single touch-and-drag operation may be applied inapplications such as on-line shopping or payment transactions. Themethod may comprise:

step 202: setting a mobile device to enter a standby state (State 0) anddisplaying a user interface including one or more activating regions ona touch-sensitive screen of the mobile device;

step 204: determining whether a touch is received in an activatingregion of the displayed user interface, going to step 206 if a touch isdetected, going to step 202 if no touch is detected;

step 206: setting the mobile device to enter an introduction state(State 1) configured to be expired in an (introduction) time duration,starting a first timer to count down from; optionally displaying timinginformation of the first timer on the touch-sensitive screen forindicating the progress of State 1;

step 208: determining whether the touch received in the activatingregion is released, going to step 210 if the touch is not released,going to step 202 if the detected touch is released;

step 210: determining whether State 1 is expired; going to step 212 ifState 1 is expired, going to step 208 if State 1 is not completed;

step 212: setting the mobile device to enter a confirmation state (State2) configured to be expired in a (confirmation) time duration, startinga second timer configured to counting down from;

step 214: determining whether State 2 is expired; going to step 202 ifState 2 is expired, going to step 216 if State 2 is not expired;

step 216: determining whether the touch received in the activatingregion is released, going to step 220 if the touch is released, going tostep 218 if the detected touch is not released;

step 218: determining whether the touch received in the activatingregion is dragged away from the activating region, going to step 214 ifthe touch is not dragged away from the activating region, going to step202 if the detected touch is dragged away from the activating region;

step 220: setting the mobile device to enter an execution state (State3) to execute an application process corresponding to the activatingregion or transmit a command to a remote server to execute a remoteapplication process corresponding to the activating region; resettingthe mobile device to State 0 after the application process is executed.

FIG. 3 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a user toperform a single touch-and-drag operation according to anotherembodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is different fromthe embodiment of FIG. 2 in that step 216 is changed to a step 316:determining whether the touch received in the activating region isreleased, going to step 220 if the touch is released, going to step 318if the detected touch is not releases; and step 218 is changed to step318: determining whether the touch received in the activating region isreleased from the activating region, going to step 214 if the touch isnot dragged away from the activating region, going to step 202 if thedetected touch is dragged away from the activating region.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the context ofthe touching and dragging can be specific to the user and/or the pagedisplayed on the screen. Thus, when one user is logged onto and/or usingthe mobile device, one set of touch-sensing parameters or predeterminedinstructions can be used and when another user is logged onto and/orusing the device another set of touch-sensing parameters orpredetermined instructions can be used.

It should also be understood by those skilled in the art that a touchand/or drag action can be implemented in various ways to accomplishdifferent results. For example, the touch can be a conventional touchwhere the user contacts a touch-sensitive screen with a finger,typically a fingertip, a shake, displacement, acceleration, orientation,roll, pitch, yaw, or movement of the user device or other suitable meansof input that enables a touch to be detected.

According to various embodiments, before entering the standby state, thedevice may be configured to determine the identity of the user via thelogin or authentication process or via biometrics such as voicerecognition, face recognition, fingerprint recognition, gesturerecognition, and/or the like.

The introduction time duration and confirmation time duration may bedependent upon characteristics of the user, such as purchase history,activity history with the service or payment provider, age of the useraccount with the payment provider, gender, age of the user, time,location, browsing history, and the like.

In one embodiment, the method may further comprise matching the selectedproduct to a database of purchasing record of the user and determiningwhether the user has purchased the selected product before; andadjusting the introduction time duration to a shorter period if the userhas purchased the selected product before. Alternatively, the mobiledevice may be set to enter the confirmation state without entering theintroduction state if the user has purchased the selected productbefore.

In one embodiment, the method may further comprise storing a lookuptable of a list of age ranges and corresponding confirmation timeduration values; searching an age range in which the identified userbelongs to; and setting the confirmation time duration to a confirmationtime duration value corresponding to the searched age range in thelookup table.

According to various embodiments, during the introduction state, thedevice may be configured to detecting whether the user is distracted byany events or accidents for preventing erroneous selection triggered byany inadvertent or accidental touch.

FIG. 4 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a user toperform a single touch-and-drag operation according to anotherembodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is different fromthe embodiment of FIG. 2 in that the method may further comprise,between step 208 and step 210, a step 409: sensing acceleration of themobile device and determining whether the mobile device has a suddenmotion; going to step 202 if a sudden motion is detected, going to step208 if no sudden motion is detected.

Accordingly, step 210 is changed to: determining whether State 1 isexpired; going to step 212 if State 1 is expired, going to step 409 ifState 1 is not expired.

FIG. 5 depicts a flowchart of a method for facilitating a user toperform a single touch-and-drag operation according to anotherembodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is different fromthe embodiment of FIG. 2 in that the method may further comprise,between step 208 and step 210, a step 509: detecting voice of a user ofthe mobile device; going to step 202 if the voice of the user isdetected, going to step 208 if no sudden motion is detected.Accordingly, step 210 is changed to: determining whether State 1 isexpired; going to step 212 if State 1 is expired, going to step 509 ifState 1 is not expired.

In the case that the single touch-and-drag operation is applied in anon-line shopping transaction, at the standby state, a user interfacesuch as a home page for an on-line shop or service provider may bedisplayed on a touch-sensitive screen of the mobile phone. Theactivating regions may be manifested as buttons, icons, product images,product names or other suitable indicative means that enables a user tomake selection to purchase a product from the on-line shop or serviceprovider.

At the introduction state, a plurality of contents in relation to theselected product may be displayed on the touch-sensitive screen. Theplurality of contents in relation to the selected product may bedisplayed sequentially as a video clip or slide show providingadditional details of the product.

At the confirmation state, a request may be displayed on thetouch-sensitive screen to ask the user to confirm if he/she wants toproceed with purchasing the selected product by releasing his/her touchaway from the activating region.

The embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented using mobiledevices, computer processors, or electronic circuitries including butnot limited to application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), fieldprogrammable gate arrays (FPGA), and other programmable logic devicesconfigured or programmed according to the teachings of the presentdisclosure. Computer instructions or software codes running in themobile devices, computer processors, or programmable logic devices canreadily be prepared by practitioners skilled in the software orelectronic art based on the teachings of the present disclosure.

All or portions of the electronic embodiments may be executed in one ormore mobile devices including server computers, personal computers,laptop computers, mobile devices such as smartphones and tabletcomputers.

The electronic embodiments include computer storage media havingcomputer instructions or software codes stored therein which can be usedto program computers or microprocessors to perform any of the processesof the present invention. The storage media can include, but are notlimited to, floppy disks, optical discs, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD-ROMs, andmagneto-optical disks, ROMs, RAMs, flash memory devices, or any type ofmedia or devices suitable for storing instructions, codes, and/or data.

Various embodiments of the present invention also may be implemented indistributed computing environments and/or Cloud computing environments,wherein the whole or portions of machine instructions are executed indistributed fashion by one or more processing devices interconnected bya communication network, such as an intranet, Wide Area Network (WAN),Local Area Network (LAN), the Internet, and other forms of datatransmission medium.

The foregoing description of the present invention has been provided forthe purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed.Many modifications and variations will be apparent to the practitionerskilled in the art.

The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and its practical application, therebyenabling others skilled in the art to understand the invention forvarious embodiments and with various modifications that are suited tothe particular use contemplated.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for facilitating a single touch-and-dragoperation in a mobile device having a touch-sensitive screen, the methodcomprising: setting the device to a standby state and displaying a userinterface including one or more activating regions on thetouch-sensitive screen; when a touch is determined to be received in theactivating region, setting the mobile device to an introduction stateconfigured to be expired in an introduction time duration; starting afirst timer to count down from the introduction time and displayingtiming information of the first timer on the touch-sensitive screen forindicating progress of the introduction state; when the introductionstate is expired, setting the mobile device to a confirmation state whenthe touch received in the activating region is not released, wherein theconfirmation state is configured to be expired in a confirmation timeduration; starting a second timer configured to count down from theconfirmation time duration; and setting the mobile device to enter anexecution state to execute an application process corresponding to theactivating region or transmit a command to a remote server to execute aremote application process corresponding to the activating region whenthe touch received in the activating region is released from theactivating region before the confirmation state being expired.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising resetting the mobile device to thestandby state when the touch received in the activating region isreleased during the introduction state.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising resetting the mobile device to the standby state whenthe touch received in the activating region is not released until theconfirmation state is expired.
 4. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising resetting the mobile device to the standby state when thetouch received in the activating region is dragged away from activatingregion during the confirmation state.
 5. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising resetting the mobile device to the standby state when asudden motion of the device is detected during the introduction state.6. The method of claim 1, further comprising resetting the mobile deviceto the standby state when voice of a user is detected during theintroduction state.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:matching the selected product to a database of purchasing record of theuser; determining whether the user has purchased the selected productbefore; and reducing the introduction time duration for a period of timewhen the user has purchased the selected product before.
 8. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: matching the selected product to adatabase of purchasing record of the user; determining whether the userhas purchased the selected product before; and setting the mobile deviceto enter the confirmation state without entering the introduction statewhen the user has purchased the selected product before.
 9. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: storing a lookup table of a list of ageranges and corresponding introduction time duration values; searching anage range in which the identified user belongs to; and setting theintroduction time duration to an introduction time duration valuecorresponding to the searched age range in the lookup table.
 10. Amobile device configured to facilitate a single touch-and-dragoperation, comprising: a touch-sensitive screen configured to display auser interface including one or more activating regions to facilitateuser input and selections, to sense input touch gestures; atouch-sensing controller connected to the touch-sensitive screen andconfigured to receive the touch-sensing signals from the touch-sensitivescreen to generate touch data; a display driver connected to thetouch-sensitive screen and configured to drive the touch-sensitivescreen to display the user interface; a processor connected to thetouch-sensing controller and the display driver, and configured toreceive the touch data from the touch-sensing controller to analyzetouch data for identifying a user input, execute an application processin response to the identified user input, and generate display data forthe display driver to reconfigure the user interface being displayed inthe touch-sensitive screen; a memory connected to the processor andconfigured to store one or more touch-sensing parameters orpredetermined instructions for execution of the application process; anda communication module connected to the processor, and configured totransmit the identified user inputs to a remote processor to execute aremote application process; wherein the processor is further configuredto: set the device to a standby state and displaying a user interfaceincluding one or more activating regions on the touch-sensitive screen;when a touch is determined to be received in the activating region, setthe mobile device to an introduction state configured to be expired inan introduction time duration; start a first timer to count down fromthe introduction time and displaying timing information of the firsttimer on the touch-sensitive screen for indicating progress of theintroduction state; when the introduction state is expired, set themobile device to a confirmation state when the touch received in theactivating region is not released, wherein the confirmation state isconfigured to be expired in a confirmation time duration; start a secondtimer configured to count down from the confirmation time duration; setthe mobile device to enter an execution state to execute an applicationprocess corresponding to the activating region or transmit a command toa remote server to execute a remote application process corresponding tothe activating region when the touch received in the activating regionis released from the activating region before the confirmation statebeing expired.
 11. The mobile device of claim 10, wherein the processoris further configured to reset the mobile device to the standby statewhen the touch received in the activating region is released during theintroduction state.
 12. The mobile device of claim 10, wherein theprocessor is further configured to reset the mobile device to thestandby state when the touch received in the activating region is notreleased until the confirmation state is expired.
 13. The mobile deviceof claim 10, wherein the processor is further configured to reset themobile device to the standby state when the touch received in theactivating region is dragged away from activating region during theconfirmation state.
 14. The mobile device of claim 10, furthercomprising an acceleration sensing module connected to the processor andconfigured to measure acceleration of the mobile device and generateacceleration signals; wherein the processor is further configured to:receive the generated acceleration signals and determine whether thereis a sudden motion of the mobile device: and reset the mobile device tothe standby state when a sudden motion of the device is detected duringthe introduction state.
 15. The mobile device of claim 10, furthercomprising voice receiving module connected to the processor andconfigured to receive voice of a user and generate voice signals;wherein the processor is further configured to receive the generatedvoice signals and identify whether the voice belongs to the user of themobile device; and reset the mobile device to the standby state whenvoice of a user is detected during the introduction state.
 16. Themobile device of claim 10, wherein the processor is further configuredto: match the selected product to a database of purchasing record of theuser; determine whether the user has purchased the selected productbefore; and reduce the introduction time duration for a period of timewhen the user has purchased the selected product before.
 17. The mobiledevice of claim 10, wherein the processor is further configured to:match the selected product to a database of purchasing record of theuser; determine whether the user has purchased the selected productbefore; and set the mobile device to enter the confirmation statewithout entering the introduction state when the user has purchased theselected product before.
 18. The mobile device of claim 10, wherein: thememory is further configured to store a lookup table of a list of ageranges and corresponding introduction time duration values; and theprocessor is further configured to: search an age range in which theidentified user belongs to; and set the introduction time duration to anintroduction time duration value corresponding to the searched age rangein the lookup table.